In the hope that the billing system will deliver better results, the City of Johannesburg will be implementing the regionalization of its municipal billing.
At a business breakfast on 23 November, property owners across the City were presented with this model to be implemented come February next year. Although the new system was debated and queried, the lack of service delivery and billing issues within the Finance Department was soon brought up.
Attempting to answer these pressing questions, City spokesperson, Kgamanyane Maphologela, said the restructure is what the City believes will resolve these issues. This and making regional managers available to escalate queries.
Sociologist, Dr Liela Groenewald, said it was difficult to predict whether regionalization will lead to better service to residents.
“If regional offices have backup electricity, excellent IT support so that computer systems are always online, qualified and well-trained staff with sufficient insight and authority to solve billing problems, effective checks on possible corruption, and if they are run well, then service can certainly improve,” she said.
Maphologela said as part of strengthening the regional offices, the area managers would be available across all the City’s seven regions.
Escalation process from when the customer first logs a query:
- Log your municipal-related query through the call centre on 0860 562 874 and get a reference number
- Queries should be resolved within 30 days
- If you have not received any resolution or response, escalate your query to the regional manager
- If there is still no response after the query has been escalated to the regional manager, speak to the deputy director
- If a customer is still unhappy with the resolution they received from the City, they can contact the City’s ombudsman.
List of regional managers
The regional offices will have the photos, cellphone numbers and email addresses on display of the responsible area managers should customers need their details (these numbers were checked by the time of going to print):
- Region A (Midrand), Moss Mosweu on mossm@joburg.org.za; 011 203 3331; 081 564 1687
- Region B (Randburg, Northcliff, Rosebank), Thulisile Nongogo on thulisileno@joburg.org.za; 011 787 7483; 082 334 0674
- Region C (Roodepoort), Shaun Govender on shaungo@joburg.org.za; 011 761 0314; 082 332 3808
- Region E (Sandton), Bongiwe Jolipepa on bongiwej@joburg.org.za; 011 582 1623/51; 081 439 4710.
Regional deputy director
- Region deputy director for region A, B, C, E, F is Arthur Mbobo on arthurmb@joburg.org.za; 011 628 4084; 072 939 4786.
The current billing system is based on a proportional model, which has proven to be challenging, said Maphologela
